Around 80-90% patients present chronic constipation as the single most common gastrointestinal symptom in Parkinson’s Disease (PD) underlying defaecatory dyssynergia, which if gone undetected for long, affects the absorption and action of the long-term levodopa therapy. Idiopathy Most of the gastrointestinal abnormalities associated with PD are attributable to impaired motility. At the level of the stomach, this results in delayed gastric emptying.
The etiology of delayed gastric emptying in PD is probably multifactorial but is at least partly related to Lewy pathology in the enteric nervous system and discrete brainstem nuclei. Delayed gastric emptying occurs in both early and advanced PD but is under-detected in routine clinical practice. Recognition of delayed gastric emptying is important because it can cause an array of upper gastrointestinal symptoms, but additionally, it has…
